c. 2006 Religion News Service
U.S. Bookstores Refuse to Sell Magazine With Cartoons of Prophet Muhammad
(RNS) Borders bookstores and Waldenbooks, both part of the Borders Group Inc., have pulled the April-May issue of Free Inquiry from magazine racks because it includes cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad.
The satiric cartoons, first published in Denmark, have set off worldwide protests, some of them violent, by Muslims because Islam forbids any images of its prophet.
“Borders absolutely supports the customers’ right to choose what to read and what to buy, and Free Inquiry has the right to publish the cartoons,” Borders Group spokeswoman Anne Roman wrote in a Thursday (March 30) e-mail. “We made the decision not to carry this particular issue of Free Inquiry because of the fact that we place a priority on customer and employee safety and security.”
Free Inquiry is a publication of the Council for Secular Humanism, which published four of the cartoons. One shows Muhammad wearing a bomb-like turban with a lit fuse.
“Why should the general public in open democratic society follow the prohibitions of one of the sects?” Dr. Paul Kurtz, editor of the 30,000-circulation bi-monthly magazine, said Thursday from his Amherst, Mass., home. “There are hundreds of denominations in the United States. They have the right to express their beliefs. We have the right to express our dissent.”
The magazine has published cartoons critical of organized religion in the past, said Kurtz. He said that when the Danish controversy broke, and many news organizations refused to show the illustrations in question, the Free Inquiry staff decided to do so as a critical comment on censorship and extreme Islam.
The magazine edition includes three essays with commentary on the cartoons.
“I feel bad to be put in this position because I love their books and I love what they do,” Kurtz said of the Borders Group. “(But) if you can’t put (the issues) on display in bookstores, it cuts off free expression.
“What is the greatest offense, to publish critical cartoons or allow obscene suicide bombers to go on without any criticism, essentially since the motive is religious?”
_ Piet Levy
Afghan Christian Convert Accused of Apostasy Thanks Pope for Release
ROME (RNS) Abdul Rahman, the Afghan who fled to Italy after facing the death penalty for converting to Christianity from Islam, thanked Italy and Pope Benedict XVI on Thursday (March 30) for seeking his release.
The taped interview was broadcast on Italian television after authorities formalized Rahman’s political asylum Thursday.
“I thank the pope, the Italian government and all those who have been involved in my case. I am happy to be here,” said Rahman.
Afghan authorities had jailed Rahman for converting to Christianity 16 years ago and tried him on charges of apostasy _ a crime punishable by death under Islamic laws that are recognized in Afghanistan.
During the TV interview, Rahman said he felt “persecuted” in Afghanistan because “I read the Bible and I became convinced of the goodness of this religion.”
Rahman arrived in Italy Wednesday seeking political asylum after his release from a Kabul prison unleashed calls for his death from Afghan clerics.
Afghanistan’s government, led by President Hamid Karzai, ordered Rahman’s release in response to a wave of international criticism.
On Saturday the Vatican sent a telegram to Karzai on behalf of Pope Benedict XVI, calling for Rahman’s release out of “respect for every person’s freedom of conscience and religion.”
“I am certain, Mr. President, that dropping the case against Mr. Rahman would bestow great honor upon the Afghan people and would raise a chorus of admiration in the international community,” the telegram read.
_ Stacy Meichtry
Major Study Shows Intercessory Prayer Has No Major Effect on Recovery
(RNS) A major study of Christian intercessory prayer for cardiac patients has found no significant effect on reducing complications but patients who knew they were receiving the prayer had a slightly higher rate of complications.
The study comes after at least five previous studies that found varying results. Three did not report success with intercessory prayer but two did.
The latest study, released Thursday (March 30), was the most extensive. It involved 1,802 coronary artery bypass graft surgery patients from six hospitals who were divided into three groups: 604 received intercessory prayer after learning they might or might not be prayed for by others; 597 did not receive prayer after being told they might or might not receive it; 601 received intercessory prayer after learning they would receive it.
Investigators found that complications occurred in 52 percent of the first group, 51 percent of the second group and 59 percent in the third group.
“Our trial cannot be generalized to all forms of intercessory prayer,” cautioned Dr. Charles F. Bethea, a principal investigator from Integris Baptist Medical Center in Oklahoma City, in a teleconference with reporters on Thursday. “But the role of awareness needs careful further study.”
He said it is possible that patients’ knowledge that they were the subject of intercessory prayer “might have induced a form of performance anxiety or made them feel doubtful about their outcome.”
The Rev. Dean Marek, director of chaplain services at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., said another possible cause for the different results is that patients who were prayed for “thought they were home free and discounted the traumatic effect that surgery has upon the body, so were ill-prepared for it.”
The study, to be published Tuesday (April 4) in The American Heart Journal, analyzed patients between January 1998 and November 2000. Two Catholic groups and one Protestant group were given patients’ first name and the first initial of their last name and asked to pray for them for two straight weeks, starting the night before the scheduled surgery.
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The groups were faxed the names of the patients and asked to include the phrase “for a successful surgery with a quick, healthy recovery and no complications” to their usual prayers.
The study team also included participants from the Mind/Body Medical Institute in Chestnut Hill, Mass., Baptist Memorial Hospital in Memphis, Tenn.; Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston; St. Joseph’s Hospital in Tampa, Fla.; and Washington Hospital Center in the District of Columbia.
_ Adelle M. Banks
Rice Visit to British Mosque Canceled After Threats Made
LONDON (RNS) A planned visit by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to a mosque in Britain on Friday (March 31) has been canceled because of threats by Muslim anti-war protesters to invade the building.
The British Foreign Office called off the event Thursday (March 30) after officials at the Masjide Al Hidayah mosque in Blackburn, northwest England, learned of the planned protest during a meeting with local Muslims opposed to the U.S-led conflict in Iraq.
Ibrahim Master, a spokesman for the mosque’s governing committee, insisted that the secretary of state’s visit “wasn’t canceled because we don’t like Condoleezza Rice,” but because the anti-war protesters “had threatened to … invade the mosque during dawn prayers.”
“It would have compromised the safety of the visiting dignitaries,” Master said, adding that because the protesters were Muslim, they could not be barred from entering the mosque.
Blackburn is in British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw’s political constituency, and Rice had intended to stop by its mosque to repay a visit the Briton made to her hometown of Birmingham, Ala., last year.
A Foreign Office spokesman described the cancellation of the mosque visit as “a pity,” but he insisted that Rice would still meet with other Muslim leaders elsewhere during her trip to Britain.
The Muslims whose anger forced the mosque stopover cancellation were identified as members of the militant Stop the War Coalition. Alex Martindale, a coalition leader in Blackburn, told journalists their action was clear proof of the unpopularity of the secretary of state’s visit.
“An historic decision has been made,” Martindale said. “This decision is evidence that the bulk of the community, Muslim and otherwise, are strongly against the visit.”
_ Al Webb
Indictment Adds to Charges in Alabama Church Fires
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (RNS) A grand jury returned a 10-count indictment on Wednesday (March 29), adding more federal charges against three suspects in a string of fires at nine Alabama churches.
Russell L. DeBusk, 19; Benjamin N. Moseley, 19; and Matthew L. Cloyd, 20, were arrested and jailed March 8 based on a two-count criminal complaint, which required their cases to be presented to a grand jury.
Wednesday’s indictment, returned at the Birmingham federal courthouse, charges the three with conspiracy and arson in the rural church fires that occurred Feb. 3 and Feb. 7. State charges also have been filed, but not served because the suspects are in federal custody.
“The church home is very important to communities large and small, but especially to these rural communities,” U.S. Attorney Alice Martin said. “Some of these churches had values in the $50,000 range, but it was everything for those communities. These are very serious offenses.”
Lawyers for the three suspects said the indictments were expected and clear the way for the cases to be resolved.
“We now have the starting point from which to begin some discussions with the prosecution in an effort to work toward a resolution,” said Tommy Spina, Cloyd’s attorney.
Brett Bloomston, DeBusk’s attorney, said he and his client were thankful there were no additional charges relating to religious discrimination or hate crimes.
“We hope we can move the case forward and try to reach a resolution,” said Bill Clark, Moseley’s attorney.
The men face a minimum sentence of seven years in federal prison and up to a $250,000 fine for the conspiracy count. Under sentencing guidelines, sentences for the other charges can run concurrently or consecutively.
_ Val Walton
Orthodox Bishops Warn Parents of iPod, Cell Phone Pornography
(RNS) Eastern Orthodox bishops in the U.S. have issued a warning to parents about the “uncontrolled availability” of pornography on cell phones, iPods and other handheld wireless devices.
Bishops from nine Eastern Orthodox churches said pornography that can easily be downloaded onto iPods and cell phones is a risk that can cause “grave consequences resulting in immeasurable moral, social and spiritual damage” on children.
The warning over pornography was first raised by Roman Catholic Cardinal William Keeler of Baltimore last November, who cautioned parents about buying the devices as Christmas gifts for their children.
“The technology itself is not dangerous,” the Orthodox bishops said. “The danger lies in the fact that there are currently no safeguards or regulations in place to protect children and teens from being exposed to unwanted, seductive and explicit content that is downloadable through these wireless handheld devices.”
The bishops issued their statement on March 15 through the Standing Conference of Canonical Orthodox Bishops in the Americas (SCOBA), an umbrella group headed by Archbishop Demetrios, the Greek Orthodox primate.
The SCOBA bishops said they were working with the Religious Alliance Against Pornography _ founded in 1986 by the late Cardinal John O’Connor of New York _ to ensure better safeguards, especially on video cell phones.
“It is precisely your children who may pay the highest price and become victims of the uncontrolled availability of all that is now technologically available on the internet,” the bishops said.
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Quote of the Day: World Magazine Editor in Chief Marvin Olasky
(RNS) “We’re not hating you. We’re not just going to make fun of you. … We’re going to listen to you. We’re going to discuss this, debate this.”
_ Marvin Olasky, editor in chief of the conservative Christian weekly magazine World, speaking at the March 17-18 Reclaiming America for Christ conference in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., about the need for conservative Christians to send a gentler message to people on the other side of the evolution debate.
MO/RB END RNS
